Last night, I took part in a panel titled “Chinese and British”, discussing personal identity – being both Chinese and British, in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title at the British Library.
The UK has the oldest Chinese community in Europe and there are plenty of Chinese (just under 1% of the total British population) living here, yet people hardly feel their presence and there’s very limited political representation.
In our panel, we talked about our life stories, our bi-lingual experiences and our thoughts on our personal identities. I found it fascinating how language shapes our identity and even personality.
It was well-attended and I even sold all the copies I brought along. Thank you to my friends who attended the event in person or online.